


College boy

by Miki_and_company



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Abuse, Angst, Bullying, Homophobia, M/M, Mentions of Masturbation, Pining, Prep School, Profanity, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-31
Updated: 2016-06-01
Packaged: 2018-07-11 06:47:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,193
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7034263
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Miki_and_company/pseuds/Miki_and_company
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dave knew for a long time that he just couldn't stroll happily through life like most people seemed to do. The best he could hope was to avoid being noticed that day. </p><p>(Inspired by "College boy" by Indochine)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Black Ouverture

**Author's Note:**

> That's...dark. Sorry. Karkat might be slightly ooc but he has, like, four lines in the finished story so I guess it isn't that bad.

Fists held tightly, head lowered, arms crossed, Dave was leaning against the school’s walls.

He felt the rough texture of the grey brick through his blazer and shirt. In the shadows, hidden behind his shades, he breathed heavily.

Hopefully no one would notice him. He heard clearly the screams and commotion of the boys playing in the yard. Five…four minutes left before he would have to go back to class.

Today, nothing had happened so far. Maybe they had been satisfied by yesterday’s torture. Maybe he’d have a couple days of tranquility before they decided that, after all, they couldn’t get bored of punching his face.

He felt a muted pain where his black eye stood, under the dark glasses. He licked his lips, felt the scab that had formed on his lower one. Why did people keep ignoring his wounds? Teachers, family. They all pretended like it was nothing. That it was none of their business where he got these from. They all knew. His brother even contributed to some. He was too scared to ask for help. As if showing weakness would help him in any way. Being too much of a sissy was already the reason he got beaten most of the time.

The rest of the time, he guessed, was just because he had a particularly punchable face.

The shrill sound of the school bell rang and he lumped his way in line, inside, in class. He folded his glasses and put them in his back pocket. If he kept them, he would be scolded.

He remembered the first time he tried keeping them, to hide, at least partially, the wounds on his face. The teacher had called him out on it immediately, all eyes were on him as he had revealed an emotionless, beat up face. Nobody commented. Some even snickered. The teacher hushed these last ones, but didn’t ask.

He sat in class. Why was it that, even then, he felt vulnerable? No seat was safe. He was in the same class than the object of his fascination. He sat two rows across, three rows behind him. Far enough that he wouldn’t be mocked about it, but in a good enough angle so he could look at the boy all class.

It was an Indian boy, with a thick accent and disheveled hair. Wide eyes. The only brown guy in the entire school, and yet he wasn’t picked on nearly as much as himself. Dave loved when he spat rants. Karkat Vantas was a small, thin boy, but he acted like the weight of the world was on his shoulders. He ever only looked at him with a sort of helpless pity. Dave had always tried his best so he wouldn’t guess how much pleasure he derived from looking at him, from thinking about him. He never approached anyone, much less the boy himself. Why would he want to spread to him the torture of ostracism?

Karkat was just a distracting thought to make him forget how pointless his life was. A buoy in a sea of despair.

He felt a wet spitball hitting the nape of his neck. His hand slowly reached around his head to dislodge the disgusting piece of chewed up paper. He didn’t even look back. Whoever did it, it didn’t matter. He heard chuckles. He didn’t rise his head. He didn’t fight back. He thought about Karkat to calm himself. He thought about how he would like to be alone with him, how he would like to taste the skin of his neck, of his thighs.

His thoughts were deeply erotic and yet he wasn’t afraid of being aroused. Only when he wasn’t scared shitless would his erection show up, and only when he was alone he wouldn’t be scared shitless.

He didn’t feel guilty either. Was it sin to hold on to your buoy when you’re about to drown? Didn’t he have the right to his own thoughts, at least?

After school he went to the bathroom to wash his face. As he was drying his face, a group of boys snuck up behind him. They were six, and they stared at him with a devious grin through the lavatory’s mirror. Dave froze. He knew what would come next. His heart clenched and his soul shriveled. He couldn’t move, yet when he looked down he saw his pale hands trembling. He tried to keep his cool, and his face showed no emotion, but the vibration of his body betrayed him.

After a millisecond that lasted one eternity, he ran out of the bathroom. He felt the boys running after him, grabbing his blazer and he squirmed himself out of it. In the semi-empty hallways, his feet tapped the ground at an incredible pace, his breath quickly running out. His tie was too tight.

They caught him just outside the school ground, and dragged behind it, in an alcove where the same group of boys smoked frequently. He tried to fight back, but they were six and he was one. They brought him to his knees, and contemplated what they could do to him. They undid his tie and used it to bond his hands behind his back. They pressed his back with their feet, pulling his head by his hair. He wasn’t fighting back anymore. He knew he wouldn’t get out of this, he might as well suffer through it and then move on. His eyes opened for a brief second. He unexpectedly fell right into the gape of Karkat Vantas.

The boy was perhaps twenty meters away from him. He had dropped his briefcase in shock. Wide eyed, scared, unsure of what he was supposed to do about the violence of the act he was witnessing. Behind him, Dave’s bullies were still too focused on their victim to notice they had been caught. They were still in the foreplay of his torture, murmuring threats and insults at the boy at their feet.

Dave and Karkat maintained eye contact. Dave did not ask for help, not even in his gawk.

Until he got kicked in the side of his face. Hard. When he managed to open his eyes again, to see something else than black and white spots in his vision, to think coherently, Karkat was gone.


	2. Memoria

Dave let his afterglow settle with a sob, a cry of pain and anger. The noise he made got nuzzled into his pillow. His underwear were sticky, like some of the fingers on his hand. He didn’t even feel like settling into a wail. Lust less, he was empty. So was the apartment.

Of course He had left. What could have He done? Who could he have told this? What would he have done, six against one?

Filled with a sudden determination, Dave got up.

He lumped his way to the bathroom, in his visibly soiled underwear. He wanted to end this. He had wanted to do so for a long time now. He was hot and bothered. Restless. His irises might have been red, but his look was black, dead. To hell with life.

He opened the cabinet and shuffled through the messy arrangement of medicine and hygiene accessories. He considered for a while his options.

He didn’t want to poison himself. He didn’t know a damn thing about drugs and didn’t want to end up sick but not dead. Besides it felt like a death too easy. Too discreet. He got out a razor.

It wasn’t a slick razor blade, like were used in the movies. It was a cheap plastic dollar store razor that likely belonged to his brother. But he could still use the blades in it. He broke the thing with both his hands.

It took a while for him to be able to pry the raw naked blades out of the things, but he somehow managed to do it without cutting himself. Like that wasn’t what he was going to do anyway. There was four blades. He laid them properly beside the sink. He threw away the broken plastic bits. He didn’t know why, all of a sudden, he was being all tidy. Maybe it was the ritualistic aspect of the process. His gestures were mechanical, handled by his body not his mind.

Until he had one of the blade limply hovering over his exposed wrist. Suddenly he felt cold. He froze. He was incapable. The sticky cum in his underwear felt uncomfortable. His face and body were covered in sweat and dirt. He couldn’t do it. Not like that.

He removed his underwear and got in the shower. He let the water pour on him without moving. Without flinching. Just letting the lukewarm water flood his body. Rinsing away his filth, and perhaps, his hesitation. He stayed in it fifteen, maybe twenty minutes. He thought that, so, these were the last moments of his existence. He felt almost nostalgic, regretful. There was nothing to be regretted about his life, it was pure and utter shit. But he wondered for a while if in some universe, there was a version of him that kept living and found peace. He didn’t want to live a life and grow into adulthood. Neither a normal life nor a life of success appealed to him. But still. There was maybe a thing that could ignite him inside, make him feel like the living weren’t just here to pity.

He got out.

He lined himself in front of the sink, stared at his blank look in the mirror. Just die already, Strider. Just pick up that razor blade and slice it across your wrist, bleed out. Feel the pain you know so well rush through your body. Don’t think about it. Don’t chicken out of this. Don’t make yourself suffer more by staying alive. Don’t let your rotting carcass become one with your soul. Don’t throw away these blades, Faggot.

He threw away the blades.

He rambled the apartment. Ended up in his room. Threw himself on the bed, naked.

He cried and wailed and wept and moaned.


	3. Anyway

Why had he come here? Why had his steps led him to this church? Why did he enter and stare down the empty alley bordered by cross-marked wooden benches? Why did he catch himself staring at Jesus on the cross like he owed him?

How did he barely notice the boy crouched in prayer on one of the benches?

What cynical game of fate had it been that this boy was no other than Karkat Vantas?

He thought about pinching himself for a while, to escape whatever mischievous dream this must be. But once he reflected on the possibility of this being a dream, he realized it wasn’t.

He stood in the row behind Karkat. There was no one else here. He hadn’t talked to him since last week incident. Or rather, he had never talked to him, period.

Silence. Heavy, sacred silence. Karkat’s face, under his joint hands was simultaneously wincing and composed. He was whispering under his breath mantras or prayers. He was still unaware of Dave’s presence.

Dave released the breath he hadn’t realized he was holding.

Karkat jumped.

Dave froze.

The boy turned his head to look at the presence behind him. He almost fainted in shock.

“Dave?”

It was strange. Nobody called Dave by his first name, he was more often addressed with something along the lines of…

“The Strider Faggot, Himself,” Dave replied cynically.

“Wh…what are you doing hh..here?”

The boy was startled and Strider wondered why. Then he stopped wondering. Of course he was uncomfortable seeing him after the incident.

Dave was too coy to mention he was intending on praying reality away, since apparently he couldn’t pry himself away from it.

“Well, obviously, I’m here to order fast food. What are YOU here for?”

Karkat played with his fingers. Dave noticed his sweaty palms.

“I was praying for…protection.”

Dave snickered.

“It doesn’t work, lad. You’ve got to protect yourself. Or hope for the best luck.”

“I wasn’t praying for myself.”

Karkat stared at Dave through his shades. Slowly, he got up. Dave was dumbfounded. He didn’t know what to do of his crush’s pitiful, empathetic, scared, ashamed glare. He couldn’t look away. The boy slowly walked away not breaking eye contact until he was well past Dave, turning his head in an almost disappointed way.

Dave realized he wanted to go after him. He realized he wanted to press his lips against his, hug him, and cry in his arms. But, just like he couldn’t bring himself to slice his wrist with a razor blade, he couldn’t

bring himself to run after him, to stop him, to confess, anything. He couldn’t move. Couldn’t attack, couldn’t defend, and couldn’t abscond.

He stood there until Karkat was past the church’s door. He then slowly walked to the middle of the aisle, and kicked one of the benches. He kicked the benches until he was satisfied. He punched them.

He sat in the middle of the aisle. He put his face between his hands. In a last statement, he flipped off the man on the cross.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Should I write an epilogue? Or is this clear as it is? (clear in an ambiguous way, of course)

**Author's Note:**

> Is there anything I didn't tag? Anything I should tag?


End file.
